Day 14: Te Mata Peak

Monday, September 9th

We wake up along the water, such a beautiful view, in a little Freedom park…Not bad for a Monday.

We rinse our faces & brush our teeth in the public restrooms then hit the road. We are heading to Te Mata Peak. Another great drive. There’s never a bad view here.

We decide to do the blue trail, because it’s the hike along the peak and ridge. It was the more challenging one as well, and we wanted a good workout! I sound like a broken record talking about these views, but once again, they were breathtaking. The beauty of this land is infinite. At the peak, there was a man fully covered in tattoos, no exaggeration, his entire face was covered. Him and his friends were doing some crazy dancing. I wanted to take a video, but Christopher told me not to. He informed me they were doing “prison workouts”. LOL Probably a good thing that I didn’t try to vlog the gang we saw.

If you’re interested, you’ll have to look up the story of “The Legend” of Te Mata. It talks about the cheif Rongokako, who tried to “eat” his way through the mountain. He was trying to complete a list of tasks given by the chief Heretaunga to prove his worthiness, because he was in awe of his daughter.

We hike along a beautiful ridge on the way back. We meet a lovely local who informs us of a bad cyclone that came through just last year and wiped out the entire town. She also told us how common earthquakes are here, and they even make jokes about the people up in Auckland who panic over a little shake. She referred to some of them as “fun” when they aren’t serious. It was a nice little history lesson, and another great encounter.

We hit the road right after our hike. We have a gorgeous drive to our next campsite. There are lambs, cows, horses, alpaca, and even a couple huge buffalo. Btw,I just looked up the difference between a lamb and a sheep, and it’s their age. Straight from Google, “Lambs are less than 12 months old. Adult sheep are 12 months and older. Adult females are called ewes. Adult males are called rams.” I’ve been googling a lot this trip, and it’s been fun with how much I have been learning about the land here and other random facts along our travels.

We stopped in a little wool shop along the way in the tiniest town. It was over priced, so we didn’t get anything. We prefer our $5 head warmers and hats, because we are frugal.

Side quote: “We die once but live everyday” That’s our goal. One of my favorite quotes by Oscar Wilde is “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” On this trip, we are doing more than some people do in an entire lifetime. We saved up a lot of money to be able to adventure for a few months, but these memories are truly priceless, and I would do it over and over again.

We stop at a BP to get gas, some water, & snacks. We go to use the restroom and the sign says “the dunny”. That’s another new one for us to add to our running list of the slang here.

We arrive in Martinborough. We stop at a nice & cute grocery store on our way in to do another big stock up. They didn’t have a restroom inside, so I told Christopher we should probably run out to the camper to go before we shop. He knows all my tricks… He said “Ohhhhhhhh, so that’s you’re way of saying we are gonna be here awhile, and you want to hangout all night” He knows I love grocery shopping more than anything. HA. Who’s with me ladies?!

The campground is another Holiday Park Top 10. It’s perfect! We are super happy with it. Nice and clean restrooms here, per usual. They left our information taped to the door, since we arrived after-hours.

We wind down, make dinner, shower, go through photos of the day, etc.

I asked Christopher his highlight and he said we laughed so much today that he can’t even remember what it was about, just all of our laughter. This made my heart happy. Be sure to find someone who you can laugh with. Laughter is one of the most important things in a relationship.

Mine was the hike down from Te Mata Peak and the ridge we hiked along. Surprisingly, the views were better on the way down. I think it’s because we were on a side where there was no people or roads, so it seemed a bit more “off the grid”. Add Te Mata to the bucket list.

G’night! We got another full day tomorrow!